Just like today's tech companies are complicit in Pissreal's genocide
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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A while ago I looked this up because I thought it was very common knowledge and accepted history that IBM was key to the Holocaust. But I was talking to someone who didn't think it was true. The wikipedia successfully confused me.
Richard Bernstein, writing for The New York Times Book Review in 2001, pointed out that "many American companies did what I.B.M. did. ... What then makes I.B.M. different?" He states that Black's case in his book IBM and the Holocaust "is long and heavily documented, and yet he does not demonstrate that I.B.M. bears some unique or decisive responsibility for the evil that was done."[8] IBM quoted this claim in a March 2002 "Addendum to IBM Statement on Nazi-era Book and Lawsuit," after the publication of Black's revised paperback edition:
Mr. Black is asserting that IBM is withholding materials regarding this era in its archives. There is no basis for such assertions and we deplore the use of such claims to sell books.[9]
I don't find the argument "what makes IBM different?" very compelling. As it would seem they are saying that many capitalist organizations acted in furtherance of fascism when presented the opportunity. While true, it is hardly a defense.
Is the denial about "withholding materials" a deflection? Surely an accusation like that would not be among the most serious....?
I was overall surprised the extent to which this whole idea is attributed to a single author only since the 21st century. I haven't actually read the book to learn what the claims are. But does anyone know if they are substantiated by the work of others, or well accepted among historians?
(see also a fairly rare self reference IBM and the Holocaust > Wikipedia editing controversy)
Liberals when "whataboutism" allows them to exonerate the liberal participants in the Holocaust
Whataboutism? What about deez nuts?
Supporting 
was just industry standard at the time.
A better question is why you would take anything Richard Bernstein says seriously? He was literally one of the prime purveyors of the myth of 'China killed hundreds of students in Tienamin Square', plastering the claim throughout the New York Times and other newspaper publications without evidence for years, and crying 'authoritarian cover-up' when the historical evidence didn't actually reveal his story to be true. As well, he was among the first liberal critics of 'multiculturalism' and was an obvious American exceptionalist.
To this, I would suggest that Bernstein is knowing he is being flippant, as if he was a serious scholar (which he was not) and not just an Ivy League educated propagandist for the NYT rebranded as a 'scrappy hard nosed truth teller', he would know he is actually under the obligation to prove that other companies have just as much responsibility for the Holocaust as IBM. If he disagrees, he is under the obligation to provide sources for his disagreement. None of his 10 books actually address this issue, which means he did not. As such there is no reason to take his criticism as anything other than another flippant book review from the New York Crimes.
disclaimer: im stupid and wrong a lot
i read this book a while ago, but i remember it mentioning a lot of primary source material
and here is a video of him talking about it and making a big deal about having a lot of primary documentation
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: